<p>i am going to start learning a programming language. my friend told me that python would be the best language to start with. can anyone tell me what i can do with python? i have never done any programming before.</p>
<p>python is a very good choice, looking back i wish it was the first language i tried to learn.</p>
<p>its just as powerful as any programming language. its very flexible and forgiving of less than perfect syntax. it does not however go very good with GUI's so expect most of your programs to run in a terminal. have fun</p>
<p>edit:</p>
<p>gentoo linux, a leading linux distro (<a href="http://www.gentoo.org%5B/url%5D">www.gentoo.org</a>) is made with python, just as an example of how powerful it is.</p>
<p>" it does not however go very good with GUI's so expect most of your programs to run in a terminal. have fun"</p>
<p>this is just not true. PyQT is a perfect GUI, you do not need a better one. there are other good ones too like tkinter or you can go with jython, that is java but can be used form python so all the java GUIs can be used. python is just fun :), you can do with it everything, game programming, text processing, graphics , everything</p>
<p>They wrote BitTorrent in python, which is a very popular filesharing protocol that I'm sure you are familiar with.</p>
<p>one advantage to something like Java, however, is the fact that tons of courses teach with it. But basically, learn one language really well, and everything else becomes easy to learn.</p>
<p>Berkeley has a good course, can be taken online (except the final exam)</p>